A Theory of Art

Karol Berger

A Theory of Art

Karol Berger

Description

What, if anything, has art to do with the rest of our lives, and in particular with those ethical and political issues that matter to us most? Will art created today be likely to play a role in our lives as profound as that of the best art of the past?

A Theory of Art shifts the focus of aesthetics from the traditional debate of "what is art?" to the engaging question of "what is art for?" Skillfully describing the social and historical situation of art today, author Karol Berger argues that music exemplifies the current condition of art in a radical, acute, and revealing fashion. He also uniquely combines aesthetics with poetics and hermeneutics. Offering a careful synthesis of a wide breadth of scholarship from art history, musicology, literary
studies, political philosophy, ethics, and metaphysics, and written in a clear, accessible style, this book will appeal to anyone with a serious interest in the arts.

A Theory of Art

Karol Berger

Table of Contents

Prologue. The Function and value of artPart I. Aesthetics: the end of artworks1. Aesthetics I. The nature of art2. Aesthetics II. The uses of art3. Aesthetics III. The genealogy of modern European art musicPart II. Poetics and hermeneutics: the contents and interpretation of artworks4. Poetics I. Diegesis and mimesis: the poetic modes and the matter of artistic presentation5. Poetics II. Narrative and lyric: the poetic forms and the object of artistic presentation6. Hermenetics. Interpretation and its validityEpilogue. The power of tasteNotes

A Theory of Art

Karol Berger

Author Information

Karol Berger Is Osgood Hooker Professor in Fine Arts at Stanford University. He is the author of numerous studies in the history of music aesthetics and theory, vocal pholyphony from 1400 to 1600, and instrumental music from 1780 to 1850. His Musica Ficta (1987) won the Otto Kinkeldey Award of the American Musicological Society.

A Theory of Art

Karol Berger

Reviews and Awards

"Berger's goal in this book is to explain how art functions, and what is its purpose. By doing so, he hopes to provide a framework in which political debates (as well as philosophical ones) about the meaning and importance of art can become more fruitful....The book reveals an author of formidable intellectual power and erudition."--he Trenton Times

"Berger provides his 21st-century readers with an articulate and accessible restatement of 19th-century aesthetic propositions....General readers."--Choice

"Here, musicologist Berger does nothing less than pull back the reins of postmodernism in favor of what could be called a balanced modernism."--Library Journal

"This book is an intellectual feast. Berger argues with such clarity that even when one disagrees one learns. He's playing in the same league as the authors he cites: Hegel, Kant, Schopenhauer, and especially Aristotle. He deserves their company."--Richard Taruskin, Class of 1955 Professor of Music, University of California, Berkeley

"Berger's A Theory of Art is a tour de force of breadth, comprehension, and coverage. Its argumentative style is eminently lucid, accessible, and honest."--Lydia Goehr, Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University